Yevgeny Roizman

He was born in Sverdlovsk to a Jewish father and Russian mother (his surname is of German origin and is a cyrillized version of Reusemann). His father was a power engineer at Uralmash. His mother was a nursery teacher. Roizman claims to have left home at age 14, to have traveled across the country and later to have started work at Uralmash as a welder. He graduated from Ural State University as a historian/archivist. He was sentenced to a two-year prison term in 1981 on charges of theft and fraud.[3]

Roizman with part of his paintings collection.

Roizman is the founder of Museum of Nevyansk Icon at Sverdlovsk region.[4] This is the first private museum to collect icon-paintings. It is located in the city of Yekaterinburg. This museum has over 600 exhibits, including icons, gospel covers, crosses, books and wooden sculptures. The earliest icon is The Egyptian Mother of God (1734), the latest is Christ Pantocrator (1919). Roizman worked in finding, searching and restoration of the icons.

In 1999, Roizman cofounded the City Without Drugs program. He operates a drug rehab center in Yekaterinburg.[5] He was accused by city officials of kidnapping drug-addicts.[2]

Roizman was a State Duma deputy between 2003 and 2007, and attempted to run for parliament from the A Just Russia party in 2007, but was taken off the election list after a conflict with party leaders. Until 2015, he was a political ally of Mikhail Prokhorov[6] and was supported by the Civic Platform party.

Roizman was outspoken against the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and called it the "betrayal of Russians".[10] Two protocols were drawn up against Roizman for "discrediting" the Russian Armed Forces due to his social media posts and a video, in which he pleaded not guilty on 29 March; the court will consider a third protocol on 7 April.[11]